The ATTTB has invited comment on rules changes on how "malternatives" are
made and taxed. Go here (http://www.ttb.gov/alcohol/rules/index.htm) and
take a look at "TTB Notice No. 4 - Flavored Malt Beverages and Related
Proposals (3/24/03)", then send your comments via e-mail at the link
provided. Vote your conscience, but remember...these idiotic things are
pushing beer off the shelf, and they're being supported by the kind of
marketing ying-yangs who actually made statements like "if we have to make
them the way the government wants, we'll never get that malt taste out."
Malternatives, frankly, suck, and this is a chance to, well, mess with them.
This will increase the cost on the shelf. That may hurt retailers, which I
don't really want to do, but...malternatives are grossly overpriced as it
is, running around $28 a case, so there's PLENTY of fat to cut out of their
wholesale price.

Deadline is OCTOBER 21, so get cracking!

--
Lew Bryson

www.LewBryson.com
Author of "New York Breweries" and "Pennsylvania Breweries," 2nd ed., both
available at www.amazon.com
The Hotmail address on this post is for newsgroups only: I don't check it,
or respond to it. Spam away.

Lew Bryson wrote:

The ATTTB has invited comment on rules changes on how "malternatives" are
made and taxed...

Is this really Lew "Git the dag-nam Gubbmint off my back" Bryson?

So, to sum up your stand on alcohol taxes, if they run counter
to your narrow self interests you're agin' 'em, but if they jibe
with your narrow self interests you're for 'em?

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, I suppose.

Speaking today what he thinks in hard words, Lew Bryson wrote:

Actually, the correct quote is "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of
little minds."

Actually the correct *full* quote is "A foolish consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers,
and divines."

On a side note, it's interesting to read the NPRM in the FR. They use
the phrase "beer, ale, porter, or stout" several times.

Nice to know our friendly regulators are using 4 words to say *almost*
*the* *exact* *same* *thing*. Makes you wonder if they actually know
what they're doing....

Chris

On 2003-10-15, Jon Binkley wrote:
Lew Bryson wrote:

The ATTTB has invited comment on rules changes on how "malternatives" are
made and taxed...

Is this really Lew "Git the dag-nam Gubbmint off my back" Bryson?

So, to sum up your stand on alcohol taxes, if they run counter
to your narrow self interests you're agin' 'em, but if they jibe
with your narrow self interests you're for 'em?

Hell, that's the Republican credo, ain't it?

notbob ...a registered republican!

(Jon Binkley) writes:


Lew Bryson wrote:

The ATTTB has invited comment on rules changes on how "malternatives" are
made and taxed...

Is this really Lew "Git the dag-nam Gubbmint off my back" Bryson?

" ... and onto someone else's" is the standard (unspoken) end of that.

--
Chimes peal joy. Bah. Joseph Michael Bay
Icy colon barge Cancer Biology
Frosty divine Saturn Stanford University
www.stanford.edu/~jmbay/ fhqwhgadshgnsdhjsdbkhsdabkfabkveybvf

"Jon Binkley" wrote in message
...
Lew Bryson wrote:
The ATTTB has invited comment on rules changes on how "malternatives" are
made and taxed...

Is this really Lew "Git the dag-nam Gubbmint off my back" Bryson?

So, to sum up your stand on alcohol taxes, if they run counter
to your narrow self interests you're agin' 'em, but if they jibe
with your narrow self interests you're for 'em?

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, I suppose.

Actually, the correct quote is "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of
little minds."

I refuse to be bound by idealism; the system is here, and while I am on
record as being against all excise taxes on alcohol, I see no reason to
behave as if they don't exist. Malternatives suck, and their manufacturers
have ducked taxes and dissembled about how they are made. So screw 'em. Your
ever-so-orderly mind can't encompass a little (and it is a damned little)
inconsistency over that?

Here's another quote for you: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I
contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes."

--
Lew Bryson

www.LewBryson.com
Author of "New York Breweries" and "Pennsylvania Breweries," 2nd ed., both
available at www.amazon.com
The Hotmail address on this post is for newsgroups only: I don't check it,
or respond to it. Spam away.

I guess I'm the first one in this thread to say thanks and I just sent My
thoughts to the powers that be...

Best regards,
Bill

"Lew Bryson" wrote in message
m...
The ATTTB has invited comment on rules changes on how "malternatives" are
made and taxed. Go here (http://www.ttb.gov/alcohol/rules/index.htm) and
take a look at "TTB Notice No. 4 - Flavored Malt Beverages and Related
Proposals (3/24/03)", then send your comments via e-mail at the link
provided. Vote your conscience, but remember...these idiotic things are
pushing beer off the shelf, and they're being supported by the kind of
marketing ying-yangs who actually made statements like "if we have to make
them the way the government wants, we'll never get that malt taste out."
Malternatives, frankly, suck, and this is a chance to, well, mess with
them.
This will increase the cost on the shelf. That may hurt retailers, which I
don't really want to do, but...malternatives are grossly overpriced as it
is, running around $28 a case, so there's PLENTY of fat to cut out of
their
wholesale price.

Deadline is OCTOBER 21, so get cracking!

--
Lew Bryson

www.LewBryson.com
Author of "New York Breweries" and "Pennsylvania Breweries," 2nd ed., both
available at www.amazon.com
The Hotmail address on this post is for newsgroups only: I don't check it,
or respond to it. Spam away.

Christian M. Restifo wrote:

On a side note, it's interesting to read the NPRM in the FR.

Huh? I don't understand those abbreviations at all...

They use
the phrase "beer, ale, porter, or stout" several times.

But I DO understand those words and it (or something similar) was a
quite common phrase in the brewing industry for years. (Sure, it's all
"beer" technically, but in the US the word "beer" is short for "lager
beer", so it's not quite so redundant.) On top of that, in many states
"beer" and "ale" have legal differences (go to Texas and find all those
Euro imports with stickers on them proclaiming them "ales"), so I
suppose they're just covering their asses for when the brewery lawyers
show up. I mean, the whole "malternative" controversy is based on the
breweries stretching and bending definitions and techniques to make and
sell a product.

Why would I give a rat's ass? So people like to drink shitty
malternatives. If they go away, they'll switch to shitty beer. It's not
like droves of people are going to turn from their beloved Smirnoff Ice and
run into the arms of Hop Devil.
--
************************************************** ***************
Dan Iwerks thinks that the beer you're drinking probably sucks.
The fundamental problem with Solipsism is it makes me
responsible for the fact that you're a complete idiot.
************************************************** ***************

Dan Iwerks dan_iwerksatyahoodottcom wrote:
Why would I give a rat's ass? So people like to drink shitty
malternatives. If they go away, they'll switch to shitty beer. It's not
like droves of people are going to turn from their beloved Smirnoff Ice and
run into the arms of Hop Devil.

No, but unless you have very good beer stores where you live,
it's a shelf-space issue. Good beer gets knocked off the limited
retail shelf space by crap malternatives/alcopop.
--
Joel Plutchak plutchak@[...] | Boneyard Union of Zymurgical Zealots

"I don't like beer. I tried it once and thought it was terrible."
- Overheard at a restaurant

plutchak joel peter wrote:

No, but unless you have very good beer stores where you live,
it's a shelf-space issue. Good beer gets knocked off the limited
retail shelf space by crap malternatives/alcopop.

Across Europe, the issue of malternatives is different : most countries
are coming out with heavy taxes on premixed beverages containing
spirits... and good old US-market recipes are on the way...
French Beer consumer group ATPUB has already reported to the French
Authorities one case of a malternative (Interbrew's Boomerang) being
sold as "beer". This kind of confusion could really hurt beer in the
long run, as future taxes could be applied to both beer and
malternatives... ((

--
Warning : you may encounter French language beyond this point.

Un vent de démence souffle sur les alpages... Laissons souffler et abritons-nous...
(F'murrr)

Laurent Mousson, Berne, Switzerland

"Christian M. Restifo" writes:

On a side note, it's interesting to read the NPRM in the FR. They use
the phrase "beer, ale, porter, or stout" several times.

Nice to know our friendly regulators are using 4 words to say *almost*
*the* *exact* *same* *thing*. Makes you wonder if they actually know
what they're doing....


Do they mean to imply that ales, porters and stouts are not beers?



--
Chimes peal joy. Bah. Joseph Michael Bay
Icy colon barge Cancer Biology
Frosty divine Saturn Stanford University
www.stanford.edu/~jmbay/ fhqwhgadshgnsdhjsdbkhsdabkfabkveybvf

My girlfriend really doesn't like beer or wine that much. But when she
drinks the Smirnoff Ice she drinks a lot of it, and it kinda loosens her up
a bit. She likes to pour it on me and lick it off. So, I am all for
"malternatives" or else I would have a very sober girlfriend. I mean, I
don't have to drink it. It tastes like Sprite anyways. (I still feel
foolish purchasing it in the store though. I always have to have some
thick, manly Stout to go with it.)

Kyle wrote:

My girlfriend really doesn't like beer or wine that much. But when she
drinks the Smirnoff Ice she drinks a lot of it, and it kinda loosens her up
a bit. She likes to pour it on me and lick it off. So, I am all for
"malternatives" or else I would have a very sober girlfriend. I mean, I
don't have to drink it. It tastes like Sprite anyways. (I still feel
foolish purchasing it in the store though. I always have to have some
thick, manly Stout to go with it.)



Hmmm... you sound like the perfect couple to try the new Smirnoff fruit
flavored malternative, now in test-marketing.

We've taken the sweet taste of dates

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/senior/fruits/date1.htm

And combined it with the spicy mustard-y richness of rape seed

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/p...93/V2-302.html

try new SMIRNOFF DATE-RAPE today!